coe guidelines

[dreamofarcadia]

 [Anything in brackets is my own commentary, not a translation.]

[These are the guidelines on the CoE main site, so I decided to translate them for reference. I know there are things that may have been said elsewhere (for example, I’ve seen someone asking about adding subtitles to videos of a playthrough in Fukao’s question box) but I am not including them in this post in order to not cause confusion- these were the guidelines that were translated into CN and KR, so I’m treating them as the “main” set of rules to be followed.

(I’ve omitted some of the ENG text that was in the original post that appears to be google translated/edited it for more clarity)

As far as I know, these are the most recent versions of the guidelines as of Summer 2022. This may change when CoM comes out, and if it does I’ll either make a new post or update this one.]

 Regarding Fanworks:

First, everyone, I’m honored that you’ve played and enjoyed this game. I’m extremely glad that you want to have fun with and enjoy it even after you’ve finished playing the game itself. 

I’ve received questions about this, so although it might be presumptuous of me to say, I’d like to take this opportunity to lay out some guidelines for fanworks.

I’d like to ask everyone to at least look at the main points of the guidelines.

• Regarding business, corporate, and use by 4 or more people

Please contact us using the form on this site. Please also remember when asking that if your request falls into one of the categories listed below as ‘not allowed’, permission will not be granted.

※Use by 4 or more people means: 

• A project large enough in scope to require 4 or more people to manage it

• That generates a lot of money and where profits will be split.

Indicate that there are 4 or more people managing it. 

Contact is not needed for groups smaller than that with comparatively few participants

• Regarding use by small groups

Please pay attention to and follow the guidelines listed below. There is no need to ask permission for these activities.

Things that are allowed: 

The distribution of non-profit and non-commercial fanworks, such as zines and anthologies. (Selling for the amount needed to cover production costs is alright, but make sure it is non-commercial and you’re not making a profit off of it)

Things to be careful of: 

Please make sure you clearly indicate that any goods produced are CoE fanworks.

Even if you’re not making a profit off of them, please make it clear that they’re unofficial fanworks of the CoE series.

What’s meant by goods is:

Zines/anthologies or unofficial items.

Downloadable content like emojis and stickers for chat clients.

We’ve gotten a lot of questions about things like screenshots, TRPGs based on this work, original characters and roleplaying, distribution of non-physical goods like PDFs, and commissions of the characters in this work, so please refer to this:

Things that are prohibited:

Using images and assets from the game itself as-is in fanworks without any kind of modifications. Some of the sprites and assets in this game were images made by others, which they allowed us to use, and some of the assets are free-use and used in other games. Using them may cause problems for other people, so please refrain from doing so. It’s also prohibited to use graphics made by SharkTaleFactory themselves as-is in fanwork. Please make your own graphics.

• Regarding sales of things that use or closely resemble in-game assets

Any sales or distribution of things that use (or closely resemble) the in-game text or any of the in-game assets are prohibited.

For example: 

• A product that copies the pixel art or sprites

• A product that copies the designs in-game

• Selling a book with all the game’s text collected in it

(The exception to that last one is unofficial things such as Twitter quote bots. But please make sure to clearly mark it as a fanmade bot.)

※Regarding the use of in-game logos and motifs

There are many situations in which the use of these things is prohibited, but there are also some situations in which it’s allowed. For more in-depth explanations on this, see here

• Regarding images or text posted on Twitter by the creator or their assistants

Even though these things might be related to the series itself, anything they personally upload is their own work, so please avoid reuploading them elsewhere or reusing them as part of fanworks.

• Things that go against public morals, promote religious groups, political parties, or certain types of ideologies.

Do not make the characters do this. Please don’t say “Well, they did those things in the game, so what’s the problem?” 

Those things in-game are just fictional parts of the setting itself, not a reflection of the author’s beliefs.

• If fan activities cause problems for others, or something illegal is being done

If problems arise during fan activities, please consult suitable people for help dealing with the situation.

• Regarding what kinds of things are allowed to be shown in fanworks

Fundamentally, SharkTaleFactory has no desire to interfere with fanworks that depict sexual content, violence, or unofficial shipping-related-content. 

We’d like you to enjoy exploring different possibilities while being aware that there is an official state of affairs.

• Relationships officially interpreted as “together in a romantic relationship”

There are many different types of love in this series. And we also know there are all sorts of different interpretations of the different relationships in this series because of that. However, the people who officially are/were together romantically as couples at the present time in this work are:

You Jabuchi & Nina Yanagi, Eiji Shinano and Akane Endo, Riku Kumazaki and Sumire Kumazaki, Minoru Harada & Rai Isoi (spoilers for DLC, highlight to see)

Seodore & Rumeld

In our works, we depict different-sex relationships, same-sex relationships, and all sorts of different relationships that aren’t necessarily romantic as equally important parts of the story, so that’s why we’re saying this.

In regards to fanworks, sometimes there are things that can bother people, differing interpretations, and things you might like but other people might not want to see. 

Or times when you only really want people who are into what you’re making to look at your account.

There are a lot of different ways to deal with things like this.

However, fundamentally, all fanworks aren’t “official”. So that’s why you should be free to do what you’d like and enjoy, and please do what you need to to not see what you don’t want to.

From our side, we’d like everyone to be able to do what they’d like with regards to fanworks, so we’d like to interfere as little as possible. 

But, because there are a lot of value systems and ways of thinking in this world, we hope everyone can make fanworks being considerate of others and make sure to keep away from things they don’t want to see.

Try not to bother other people, and we hope everyone can enjoy making fanworks and enjoy interacting with each other. 

I’ve said all these things about fanwork, but what I just mean is

“Be nice and have fun!!!” 

That’s all I want to say. Thank you.

[Here's a link to a translation of the 'Messages' page (what it says on the question page) and a link to the 'Responses to Messages' page, which tells you which messages they're likely to respond to, which questions they won't respond to, and how long any inquiries may actually take. There's also translations of the official walkthrough & FAQ (I haven't finished the game, so apologies if the walkthrough is missing a bit of context/not translated with the right terms, I plan to update it for clarity once i get through it, but you're also welcome to tell me if I misunderstood something. I didn't translate the patch notes because I think...? everyone engside should be downloading the most recently patched version from the website]